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  We’ve had Lucky since I was seven. He was the one at the shelter hiding at the back of the kennel. Lucky, according to his chart, was already a year old. So in dog years, he’s almost retired now. Sixty-three.

  “He’s the one,” I said, as the small black shadow in the corner watched with unblinking eyes.

  “What about a shepherd? Do they have any labradors?” my mother asked. “Shepherds are such good watchdogs. The Millers’ never shuts up.”

  “Him.”

  “She wants a mutt.” My father laughed. It was his idea to get a dog. Edward was at baseball practice. We were going to surprise him.

  “A crazy mutt,” my mother said. She didn’t laugh.

  “I’d say he was a pretty lucky dog.” That was my dad. “Lucky,” I said, “let’s go, boy.”

  Who in the world but a crazy mutt would follow me everywhere I go?

  Let the Wind In

  A bowl of luscious vanilla pudding might make any dog hungry. This is my impression as I carry one into the den, low-ash dog biscuits filling my other hand, enough to please a sudden canine appetite. I find Baby Teeth kneeling on the carpet next to the red couch, singing to Lucky. What a sweet kid. Some old tune about sunshine and life, and really she’s crooning so well that Lucky, all stretched out on top of some throw pillows like a king, can’t keep his eyes open.

  I silently edge myself into one of the red easy chairs, so as not to interrupt. I look out the window at the birds. The lawn is so full of them, the birds seem to grow out of the ground. I feed them when I can, which means I have to steal some bread and nuts when my mother isn’t around. Otherwise my mother’s vocal cords resonate with loud, nasty words.

  Birds, more than most other beasts, are high on her hit list. Because they miscalculate and dump turds on her car—isn’t that tragic? Feeding them just invites trouble, she claims. How my parents got together I’ll never know. My dad loves animals.

  But at least I can feed the birds. So what if I feel like a criminal when I do? The sensation is not terrible—the suspense makes my heart pound. In the end it may be a positive cardiovascular exercise. Criminal activity also smells good—it fills the air. Danger, I think, smells like the glob of leftover hot chocolate at the bottom of the cup, black and slightly burnt.

  At night there’s a riot at the back of the house. It’s the raccoons, rolling the garbage cans around like bowling balls. I’m seriously not allowed to feed them at all. My mother has mentioned, in her deadpan way, that “Food is not what they need. Maybe poison.” My mother can be very funny, especially when she’s not trying. I’ve wondered if that poison crack was really confined to the raccoons. Or am I just unfathomably paranoid?

  “Spiders are stronger than steel,” Baby Teeth says. I turn my gaze from the birds to my sister’s clear brown eyes. Baby Teeth makes this kind of statement when she wants to avoid something. One small hand rests on Lucky’s tail.

  “Who told you that?” I say.

  “Mr. Connor.”

  Mr. Connor is my best friend Eileen’s dad. “Yup. Better parachutes, bulletproof vests, and clubs, clubs . . . golf clubs.” She sits back and rubs her bare knees through the holes in her jeans.

  “You mean spiders are making golf clubs now? Sometimes you can’t believe everything people tell you.” She tugs at some loose threads on her pants. “Oh, Virginia, I’m talking about spider silk. It was on PBS.”

  “Right, thoughtless of me. Look how Lucky liked your singing.” Lucky’s tongue droops from his jaw as he sleeps.

  “I know. That song always puts me to sleep,” she says.

  “I just do it usually without making noise.” A smile widens her face. “Well, think about Mr. Connor picking his nose. I saw him; don’t tell me I can’t believe it.” Baby Teeth is also very attentive to any disgusting personal habits people might have.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” She hasn’t been over there often enough—but I have. Mr. Connor cuts the foulest air known to man. “Baby Teeth,” I say softly, “Dad’s going to be okay—he just went in for some tests. There’s no reason to worry.”

  “How do you know?” She stares at me.

  I have to remember I’m talking to a person who sleeps with her eyes open. That’s really true. I used to think it meant that she never actually slept—that she was only pretending. But it’s a matter of eyelids, is all. Baby Teeth’s won’t stay shut. “Well, Edward’s not around, is he? Don’t you think if something big and terrible were happening, he would be here?” Now her eyes are on Lucky’s cast. Baby Teeth thinks before she speaks, something I like about her. “Well, yeah,” she finally says. “I guess so.” I am such a good liar.

  Where is my brother? We’ve got a damaged dog and a hospital-bound father, so where is he? Probably unconscious somewhere, a common occurrence, or doing some rock climbing inside his head.

  | | |

  Edwad has his own room on the first floor for no other reason than he’s the boy. Aside from being slept in, his room is generally empty because Wadnod is never home. Homework is an absent word in my brother’s vocabulary anyway. Neanderthals were not known to be big scholars, so I’m not surprised.

  I assume he feels secure sleeping close to his car, which is parked outside his window. For Wadbrain’s prized possession, it’s a toss-up between the old Plymouth rust heap that my dad bought him when Wadstain got his driver’s permit last year and his shoulder-length ponytailed hair. He’s got four different conditioners in his bathroom. Is it the end, or the stifling beginning, of obsession? Va va va voom.

  Baby Teeth and I share a room all the way at the end of the house on the second floor, which is how I’ve become aware of her sleeping patterns. Who knows how much I’ve said to that sleeping body because her eyes were staring at me? Our room has a door that’s curved on top like a half moon. It’s really unusual. I like unusual stuff. I like the door shut. Baby Teeth prefers it open. “Let the wind in,” she says. What wind? I wonder if she means that some moments are so still, especially in this house, it seems like they vanish before they really even exist. But I don’t want to ask—she’s already told me that some questions of mine scare her.

  | | |

  My brother says that Baby Teeth’s a real piece of work. It is, incredibly, a thought I can agree with. She’s also hopelessly cute, with light brown hair that curls around her shoulders and highlights her unquestionable dimples. Nobody can resist her. I suppose that’s why people let her follow them around in their houses, instead of calling the police or somebody like me right away to come and get her.

  Wadhead ignores me and Eileen when he sees us around town, as if I’m not his sister, who eats dinner with him every night. When he shows up, that is. Like I’m this perfectly invisible stranger he couldn’t see even if he wanted to. “Virginia,” I will say when he stares through me with bloodshot eyes in that hunched, vulture like way of his, as he chews his potatoes. Oh, I am weak-kneed with fear. “My name is Virginia and I exist.”

  “You don’t exist,” he will say.

  “Over a million species of insects exist; do you know that?” Baby Teeth will say.

  “No crap,” my brother’s porkchop-chewing mouth might reply. Not even the Wadness can resist her.

  “Insects rule,” she’ll announce. “You just watch.” And as she explains, her silverware might land on the floor, since her hands are always busy when she talks. The word is not clumsy, but preoccupied, I think. She tends to knock stuff over.

  | | |

  Lucky barks with high-pitched fervor when that happens. Because all stray morsels, as unspoken dog law would have it, are his. He’s smart enough to sit at Baby Teeth’s heels at dinner. Until yesterday, anyhow. Sometimes I don’t know who I feel closer to.

  Are You Talking to Me?

  The sky is immense in April. Beneath it, anything seems possible. Baby Teeth is asleep next to Lucky. Might as well do some homework—all reading. Yes! Any day without math is a good one. It’s ten pages of Shakespeare for English and a c
hapter of some supposedly well-spun noise called The Varieties of Religious Experience for my elective, Western philosophy. But first, some pudding. Save it for the dog, tubby.

  To begin with, how can things so insecure as the successful experiences of this world afford a stable anchorage? A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and life is after all a chain. In the healthiest and most prosperous existence, how many links of illness, danger, and disaster are always interposed?

  Somebody help me, please. What I read was: Life is a chain. How many links of illness, danger, and disaster are interposed? The answer to that, in this house, is one of each. Except for the dangerous element, who is elsewhere, and possibly reapplying lipstick at this moment.

  “Is Dad home?”

  Oh, there’s the vulture in the doorway. I didn’t hear him come in. That means my brother’s car must be running unnaturally well. Usually the Plymouth rumbles up the driveway. They’d like it to “purr,” Wadstain and my dad, which is why they are often found hands under its hood on weekend mornings. Wadnod is wearing a faded army jacket and mud-stained jeans. Very cool. It looks like he’s been slam-dancing with the ground. “No stronger than its weakest link.”

  “Are you talking to me?” I say.

  | | |

  “Nah, it’s the chair I figure I’ll hear from.” His dark brown ponytail flops around. “I don’t got time for this, you know. So is he or not?”

  I notice his earlobes turning red, so I relent. “They’re not home yet.” My chin tilts toward the couch’s dozing lumps. “Be quiet.”

  “Well, that’s all you gotta say, you know.” He keeps his voice down, which is phenomenal, then follows with his classic vulture face, cheeks all sucked in, lips curled. Oh, I am stunned with terror. The final say is always my brother’s, whether it’s with his sneer or impressive truck-driver vocabulary. I really wonder what the girls see in him. He’s built like a scarecrow under all those baggy clothes, so it must be the car. Some females are truly desperate.

  “Is that right?” I say. “And ‘hello’ is probably something you could manage.” Screw him.

  “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t got time for small talk.” I have nothing else to say. I look back at my book. The chapter is appropriately called “The Sick Soul.” ‘How many links . . . ?’ Really.

  “Yeah, I’m busy. . . .”

  Yeah, he looks busy. Why is he telling me the same nothing thing twice? The Wad doesn’t seem to remember he never speaks to me. I realize my dad’s hospital trip has my brother really rattled, and I’m uncomfortable. Change the subject. “Did the paper come?”

  “Huh?”

  “Hi, Edward.” Baby Teeth is awake.

  “The newspaper.”

  “I suppose it’s out there.” He nods at Baby Teeth.

  Lucky yawns. I’ll carry him outside, see if the grass reminds him of his former life. Then maybe his appetite will come back. Dr. Wheatie showed me how to lift him, both arms under the stomach. The cradle again.

  “At least say hello to the dog, will you?”

  “Time for a run, huh, Pegleg?”

  We all crack up. It’s so unexpected, my face hurts. With their idiotic grins, my siblings don’t even look like the same people.

  The back door slams.

  “They’re home!” Baby Teeth is gone. Out the den, through the living room, the hall with its fake palm tree, into the kitchen. I hear only the clack of high heels on the kitchen’s yellow linoleum floor. My mother. Where’s Dad? I look at my brother. He’s chewing the tip of his filthy thumb.

  “Huh,” he says.

  “Right.” ‘How can things so insecure as the successful experiences of this world afford a stable anchorage?’ I’m beginning to understand. My brother is going. I hear Baby Teeth asking my mother questions in the kitchen

  “Edward?” I say. Who?

  “Yeah.”

  “Ever read any James?”

  “James who?”

  I’ll take the dog out. Get some air. Why not? He’s in my arms. We’ll use the front door. William, William James.

  It seemed like the flu last week. So my dad kept sleeping. But nobody else around here caught it, which is unusual. After three days, my dad wasn’t better and stopped eating. He had gone back to the office last Thursday anyway, because he is a stubborn mule, according to my mother. When he came home that night, he was just a paler and skinnier version of himself. He went to bed.

  The next morning he looked even worse and finally agreed to go with my mother to the doctor, who at first also thought it was the flu. And then maybe more than the flu. The symptoms of mononucleosis—terrible chills and pains, complete exhaustion, muscle cramping—were the stuff my dad felt, and so Dr. Sweeney wanted to have some blood work done.

  Dad came home from Dr. Sweeney’s and slept all weekend. He ate a full dinner on Sunday, his first entire meal in days, and claimed he felt better. But he was gray. Even his lips.

  Yesterday, which was Monday, he went back to work. Because he’s a fool, said my mother. Was that yesterday? Yes, as I dropped some six-grain bread into the toaster slots. I hadn’t even put my socks on yet. Everybody had left. Then the doorbell rang . . . and Lucky . . .

  And today, Dad stayed home again. They waited. . . . The mono test was negative. Off to the hospital they went. Okay, it’s not mono. So what is it?

  Lucky eyes the grass. He sniffs, attempts to lift his leg. He groans because he can’t. I groan. Anyway, he can pee. Good. That’s my boy. I carry him around the side of the house. I see my mother through the kitchen window. Her mouth is moving. Of course I can’t hear the words. I wait. Her hand lifts the glass to her lips. A wicked gulp. Unparalleled, really. So much can happen in so little liquid. But under an April sky anything is possible. Once she swallows, the edge of her mood softens. It’s okay to go in.

  “They want to keep him overnight,” she says as I shut the kitchen door with my foot, Lucky in my arms. She has a gift for stating the obvious and lying about everything else. My mother wanted to kill my dog. She made that clear enough with no trouble. So why not say everything she knows about Dad? The irritation drags along my tongue like a rusty chain. I can taste it. I hate my mother.

  I’ll Tell the Truth

  Sometimes it’s better not to say a word. Raisinets come to mind.

  It was my mother who came downstairs in a hurry last Friday morning, before we left for school, to telephone the doctor. I remember another emergency call when Baby Teeth wedged several Raisinets up her preschool nose. She had just turned three. Eventually the chocolate melted and she was able to blow them out, unscathed.

  Morning has never been my mother’s chosen time of day. She’s just not herself. Hell, the day didn’t start until the 5:00 P.M. ice cubes sent cold music into her waiting glass. Well, on Friday morning her hands shook so badly that to hit the buttons on the phone she had to put the receiver on the kitchen table because she had already dropped it twice.

  Whoever answered must’ve said the doctor was busy or something because my mother said, “So sorry to burst that bubble!” She slammed the phone down, stomped upstairs, and they left the house immediately. My dad was still in his pajamas, too, which was just awful. I mean, picture it. A grown man in his blue plaids whisked away to the doctor. Like a cartoon but the opposite of funny.

  The image of those electronic chairs that glide up and down the stairs came stupidly into my head. I had seen the commercial about a thousand times on late-night television. My dad’s face was all puffy and yellow beside his mouth. Around him, the air was green. Who cares if it’s possible or not; it’s true. It took him forever to come down the stairs, even with my mother and EdWad supporting him under his armpits. My brother’s face was the color of an old plum.

  I almost dropped my bowl of cereal when I saw them. I looked over at Baby Teeth. Can eyes rumble? Hers were. What is she so afraid of? Does she think Dad is going to die or something? I thought. But I would never have said that. And why not is because I wasn’t sur
e that those thoughts weren’t coming from the inside of my own head. It’s better not to say a word sometimes.

  We were in the living room. Baby Teeth had followed me in because she wanted the rest of my Banana Nut Crunch cereal. She could easily have made herself ten bowls, but that was not the point. She was after mine, the milk just wetting, not drowning, the stuff so it still crunched.

  “We’re going to Dr. Sweeney. Don’t miss the bus,” my mother said. Wadnod loped away, mumbling “Good luck,” I think. When the door closed behind them, I walked over to Baby Teeth.

  “I can’t eat it all.” I handed her my cereal. The smell of bananas filled the air between us.

  She took it.

  There are, however, occasions when it is crucial to say stuff out loud. This is true in friendship. Eileen Connor and I have been best friends forever. We’ve been in the same grade since kindergarten and always sit near each other in any classes we share because of our last names—Connor and Dunn. And we’re both Irish. All somebody has to do is see her red bush of hair hovering above the street like a big cloud to see how Irish Eileen is.

  It wasn’t always a bush. Not many Irish people have natural hair bushes, I suspect. But she needed a change a few months ago. Before the cut, her hair looked like a piece of discolored corn attached to the back of her head. Because it was utterly impossible for Eileen to get a comb through the heap when it got loose, she held it captive with a barrette.